He is joining a club at the paper: his fellow columnist, Polly Toynbee, has accused Mr Brown of managing to "shipwreck himself and his party", while the paper's Economics Editor, Larry Elliott, has criticised the PM and his Chancellor for rejecting prudence, arguing that they "have done a Ratner; they have polluted their own brand".

Today's article by Mr Freedland admits that he and the others who supported Mr Brown's leadership overestimated the man: the Prime Minister "is simply not up to the job" and "seems to lack the skills of a man who would lead a 21st-century nation". He does "not seem able to deliver three or four plain, human sentences", has been "dishonest" and lacks courage (despite having written a book on the subject).

That will not have made welcome reading at Downing Street, and nor will news that grassroots members of the Labour Party have also lost faith in their leader, too. A survey byÂ Labour Home shows that only 37.6% of them believe that Gordon Brown should lead the party into the next election.